


surely to the sea

by celaenos



Series: clark keeps kara au [2]
Category: DCU (Comics), Supergirl (TV 2015), Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Family Feels, Gen, Parenthood, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 00:57:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17234417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celaenos/pseuds/celaenos
Summary: Lois is in the middle of typing up an article on police corruption in Gotham, trying to chug the largest mug of coffee that she owns, and choking on a Twizzler when Clark shows up shaking, holding a little girl’s hand.





	surely to the sea

**Author's Note:**

> iiiiiii don’t know. It’s possible sometime there will be a clark POV, but who the fuck knows with my brain.

Lois is in the middle of typing up an article on police corruption in Gotham, trying to chug the largest mug of coffee that she owns, and choking on a Twizzler when Clark shows up shaking, holding a little girl’s hand.

Clark moves swiftly and yanks the Twizzler outta her throat. Lois nearly hacks up a lung. “Thanks, Smallville,” she croaks, nodding towards the girl. “Who’s this?”

She’s moving to clamp her hands over her ears, her body starting to shake worse than Clark, donned in a weird pure white robe. When Lois looks more deeply, she notices the same symbol that’s decorating Clark’s suit is emblazoned on the girl’s clothes. Lois’s eyes go wide at the same time the kid starts making this low keening noise.

“Clark,” Lois says, sharply. “What’s going on?”

Clark whips around as the noise the girl is making grows louder. She’s pressing her hands as tight as she can to her ears now, tears falling out of her eyes, rocking back and forth and making that horrible noise. Lois and Clark both jump towards her in the same instant. “Kara,” he says, low, worried. “Kara it’s okay, you’ve just got to focus on one thing. Try focusing on my voice. There’s a way to tune out the rest.”

“What?” Lois smacks at his arm, more out of surprise than anything else. Whatever he’s trying to tell her, it’s not working at all. “Clark, get her out of here,” Lois says quickly. “It’s too loud or something. Is she…”

Clark’s already got her scooped up in his arms, and he’s nodding at Lois, looking guilty. “Yeah she’s… she’s from Krypton. I’ll call you once she’s okay,” he promises, and then they’re gone.

Lois sucks in a heavy breath, grips her fingers into fists, and breathes out slow.

…

…

She’s got her article finished and submitted by the time that Clark comes back.

He’s alone.

Lois sits on the couch and listens to him as he paces in front of her, saying things like _cousin,_ and _frozen in space,_ and _watched it blow up,_ and _doesn’t have a handle on her powers,_ and a whole other host of things that Lois feels reverberate inside her chest as the crease between his eyebrows grows deeper and deeper. Finally, she can’t take it anymore.

She stands up and grabs him. The minute she gets her arms around him, Clark stills and sinks into her grasp. He’s shaking, but there aren’t any tears—he’s too shocked.

“Clark,” Lois says, firm, holding his attention. “Take a breath, and start from the beginning again. Where is she now?”

“With my parents.”

“Okay… so, she’s okay.”

“But—” he falters. “The way she looked at me when I left… I don’t know what to do,” he admits.

“We’ll figure it out, Smallville,” Lois says, easy and teasing. He gives her a look like he’s not quite buying it—he can feel the way that her heart is racing—but he nods anyway, gripping at her hand. They fall asleep like that, hands entwined tightly, their chests rising and falling in a matching tandem.

…

…

Kara is quiet when they’re properly introduced. Clark flies the two of them to Smallville for dinner, and Lois feels Kara’s gaze on her nearly throughout the entire evening. She reminds Lois of Lucy, a little. She’s not sure why for weeks after, because Lucy has never been a quiet or sullen little thing, but there is a determined set of energy to her shoulders that matches Lois’s little sister. It makes her smile. She stops treating her like she’s an alien, or this bomb that’s been dropped into Clark’s lap, and just starts talking to her like she would Luce, only nicer.

Kara gives her the barest hint of a smile when they’re sitting together on the Kent’s porch swing, waiting on Clark and his parents to bring them out some desert.

“Does she live with you?”

“No,” Lois pushes her feet against the floorboards, resuming their swinging. “She’s off at college now. A freshman. I talk to her every few weeks or so. Make sure she’s doing okay.” Lois can hear the Kents shuffling around in the kitchen. “Our Dad’s overseas right now.”

Kara frowns, pushing against the floorboards in the same way that Lois did, but with extreme care.

“He’s in the army. We moved around a lot. Luce and I took care of each other, mostly. Well,” Lois grins, conspiratorially leaning in and whispering, “more me taking care of her than the other way around, but don’t tell her that.”

“I won’t,” Kara smiles, then after a moment of hesitation, lifts up her pinky finger and waits. “Martha said it’s how you promise things here on Earth.”

Lois links their pinkies together, beaming. “Martha was right.”

“I usually am,” the woman herself says, walking out onto the porch with Clark and Jonathan behind her, their arms full of bowls filled with ice cream. Kara scoots a little closer to Lois, giving Martha enough room to slide in and join them on the swing. Jonathan and Clark sit themselves on the steps, and propped up on the porch railing, respectively. Lois watches the sidelong glances that Clark and Kara exchange, the both of them looking away or giving awkward smiles whenever they meet each other’s eyes. The only times that Lois has ever seen Clark radiate this kind of nervous energy was when he first told her that he loved her, coming up on a year ago, and when he finally spat out that he was Superman, only a few months ago.

Lois scoops a small bite of ice cream onto her spoon, and when he’s not paying her any mind, she flicks it at his face, causing his mother to chuckle and roll her eyes at Clark’s indigent huff.

“That, was rude,” Clark declares, swiping the offending drop off his cheek and into his mouth. Lois only leans back in the swing and smiles at him—his shoulders have relaxed. When she turns around, Kara is looking between the two of them intently. Lois straightens up despite herself.

Kara is staying here, not in Metropolis. Not with them. Clark had flown back and apologized, agonized, over it. Lois hadn’t known what to say, which was a first for her. Part of her wanted to smack Clark for thinking he could shuffle this responsibility over onto his parents, who already did their fair share of raising a kid, and part of her had been fiercely relieved.

Then she’d felt guilty.

Of course, then she saw all of those same emotions play out on Clark’s face, as he told her that Martha and Kara had made the decision, really. He had been willing to go along with whatever Kara wanted, scared as he was.

“Alright,” Lois says, pressing her palms into the tops of her knees.

“Is… is it okay if that changes?” he asks, tentative. “If this… if she changes her mind and wants to come here?”

“I…” Lois stalls. _Goddammit,_ she’s not often at a loss for words. “Yes.”

Clark’s eyebrows go up. “Are you _sure—”_

“Clark!” Lois cuts him off. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Okay?”

“Okay,” he nods, too many times in a row to come off as normal. Usually, Lois has loads of ideas on how to tug that nervous energy out of him. Wonderful, brilliant, lack of clothing type ideas, but the thought doing of anything other than sitting down on the couch and holding him until she can breathe properly again right now sounds unbearable. So, they do that.

…

…

They go to Clark’s childhood home for dinner. Multiple times a week. It’s the most awkward Lois has felt since she punched Shawn Welch in the seventh grade after her kissed her on the dance floor. Jonathan is calm and easy and not hard to talk to at all and Lois has always liked him since the moment that she met him, instantly.

Martha terrifies her.

Clark is a product of both his parents, and he goes to them equally, but something about the look in Martha’s eye always makes Lois feel on edge, like she’s got to prove something. It only grows, now that Kara is in the mix. Kara has clearly taken a shine to Martha, she seems a million times more comfortable with Martha or Jonathan than she does with Lois or Clark, and Lois doesn’t know if that is supposed to be a good thing or a bad thing. She doesn’t know what she is supposed to be feeling about any of this at _all._

So, she declares they all should go swimming. It’s a hot enough day, she’s been dodging awkward conversations with Martha and Kara for a few months now, and everyone is bubbling over with tension. Lois hollers out a war cry, jumping into the lake in a cannonball and Clark laughs. She comes up beaming and splashes him and dares him to do her one better. It’s _great_.

Until Kara slips into the water, and sinks like a goddamn  _stone._

Lois’s heart stops—she’s sure of it. Kara’s little head bobbles under the water and she lets out a horrible choking and scared noise and Lois freezes. Clark jumps in and has her up in the air and sputtering in seconds, but Lois can’t move.

Clark and Jonathan give Kara word or two on the finer points of buoyancy, showing her how to breathe out and not into the water, and Kara is lapping Clark by the afternoon, Lois cheering her on from her place on top of the diving rock. It sounds just a bit raw to her ears, and Clark looks over at her a little funny, but he doesn’t say anything, for which Lois is immensely grateful. She wouldn’t know what to tell him if he asked what was wrong. She hasn’t got a goddamn clue.

She has nightmares of Kara’s sputtering scared face for a week straight, after.

Two days after that, Kara is packed up and sitting, surprised and unsure like she hasn’t been in months in Lois’s living room.

( _Theirs,_ Clark corrects. Always. But it was Lois’s first and fair is fair, so she just grins at him and doesn’t change her tune.)

Neither of them knows what to do with a thirteen-year-old Kryptonian teenager. Lois knows teenage girls, she was one, and she did a hell of a lot in raising another—which, Luce hasn’t talked to her in _weeks—_ and she lives with a Kryptonian, has for years, now.

But—

This feels too different. Too big. Lois keeps seeing the image of Kara drowning when she closes her eyes and Clark tiptoes around Kara like a skittish colt and Lois feels like screaming at someone.

She takes it out on the new intern at the Planet, because she’s an asshole.

“ _Jesusfuckingchrist_!” she screams, when he knocks into her and spills her coffee. His face goes white with panic, and he’s all of about eighteen, at the most, and Lois feels instant guilt. “Shit,” she mumbles, reaching for him before he can bolt. She rubs at his shoulder, gentle. “Sorry — I’m, an asshole. It’s not your fault… um…”

“James,” he supplies, a bit warily.

Lois claps him on the back, not hard. She can hear Perry hollering about something in the background, only a matter of time till he comes looking for her. “Jimmy, I owe you a coffee, let’s beat it before Perry finds out that we’re gone.”

“Um,” he looks back, panicked. “It’s James, actually. And I don’t know if I’m supposed to—”

“Jimmy,” Lois says, pointedly, because she wasn’t lying about the asshole thing. And he’s young and wiry and it suits him. Maybe James will, one day, but not now. “First rule of life at the Planet, avoid Perry’s moods whenever possible. Come on, I know the best coffee place around here. If you’re gonna be an intern, I’m about to save your life.”

Jimmy pinches up his face, but then give Lois a brilliant smile that makes her fall just a little bit in love with the kid, and he nods. “Okay,” he grins. “Sounds good.”

Her luck has run out by the time she gets home and finds Kara and Clark edging away from each other in the kitchen and Lois is so sick of feeling like she might burst at any moment that she just… does.

Both of them gape at her once she’s finished. Lois is sort of surprised that they let her go on that long, all things considered. She huffs out a breath, unsure of where her sentence had been going and just flops down into the couch. “I yelled at an intern today,” she admits.

Clark finally moves. “You do that all the time,” he says, almost fond. “They all love you the best anyway.”

Kara’s face is carefully blank as she watches this conversation play out. Lois sucks in a breath and says absolutely _nothing_ as she rises from her spot on a kitchen stool and lowers herself slowly down beside Lois on the couch. “How was the rest of your day?” she asks, a bit stiffly.

Lois fucking _beams_ back at her anyway and launches into a—probably far too vivid, for a thirteen-year-old—description of the scandalous affair she’s about to bust a corrupt politician for, and before she realizes it, Kara has scooted close enough so that their thighs are touching. She takes a chance and snakes her arm around Kara’s shoulders, grinning when she leans in closer in response. “So, Smallville, what’s there to eat around here? I’m starving.”

“Me too,” Kara adds.

Clark bites back his smile and nods. “Okay, I’ll whip something up.”

“Make it snappy,” Lois calls. “You got hungry two women over here.”

Kara’s lips twitch, fighting back a smile, and Lois feels like she just won something.

…

…

Clark still avoids being alone with Kara, and Lois is starting to get as fed up with him as Kara is.

She screams at him when Kara is out getting ungodly amounts of Indian food for them to have for dinner. She hasn’t screamed at Clark like this since—maybe ever.

He crumbles in front of her. “I know,” he says, agonized. “I’m sorry.”

“Get it together Smallville,” Lois hisses, but all of the bite is gone, now. “I can’t do this by myself.”

“I’m—” his head jerks up and down into a nod.

Kara can tell something is off the second that she walks back into the apartment. Lois goes over-cheerful and too affectionate, not her brand at all, and Clark goes quiet. He eats fast and claims he has work and then it’s just the two of them. Kara won’t look at her.

The problem is that Lois sort of gets why this is all so hard for Clark. He has been tentative with Kara since the moment he found her. Lois is pretty sure, from all of the half-conversations they’ve had about it in the last year and everything that has come before, that Kara is a shocking reminder to Clark about the life that he might have had. Physical proof of his alien-ness. Inescapable, and now he has to confront the reality of that truth. He’s always considered himself more human than not, and Kara is flesh and bone and solid proof otherwise. Lois isn’t sure how she’d feel, in his shoes. It’s strange enough to be beside him in it. She doesn’t know what place Kara wants Lois to be in her life any more than Clark does.

Lois has never been one for subtleties, so, while Clark is off probably breaking a murderer’s jaw and then having hot-chocolate with his mother, Lois just up and asks her.

Kara sputters and drops a piece of naan onto the floor. “What?”

“What do you want from me?” Lois repeats. “I’m… do you want a mom, a big sister, a friend, an… aunt? I — I feel like this has all been strange and confusing because none of us are really talking honestly with each other, and frankly, I’m sick of it.”

“I—”

“I can be whatever you want, Kara,” she says and means it. Kara can tell. Lois’s heartbeat is even. Steady. Her eyes are warm and she’s rubbing slow circles on Kara’s forearms, because she looks panicked and it’s making Lois think about that day at the lake in ways that she really, _really_ doesn’t want to dwell on.

“I — don’t know,” Kara says, honest. “Not a mom,” she adds, looking guilty. “I already… mine is…”

“That’s fine,” Lois says, easier than she feels. Kara picks up on it.

“I… family?” she finally asks, looking down at the floor.

Lois slides outta her place on the couch and wraps her entire body around Kara’s. “Easy enough,” she says and gives her a smacking kiss on the cheek. Clark finds them like that, later. Lois has dragged Kara into their bedroom and declared that she will be using her as a personal heated blanket for the night and when she looks up and sees Clark standing silently in the dark room and looking down at them, she frowns. “You’re sleeping on the couch, Smallville,” she says. “I’m replacing you.”

He smiles, instead of arguing. “Seems fair.”

“Your mother knock some sense into you?”

He nods.

“Alright then,” Lois rolls over, Kara curling into her tighter. “See you in the morning. I expect pancakes.”

“You got it, love.”

“Clark,” Lois calls. He turns slowly and meets her eye. “I love you.”

He grins. “I know.”

“You guys are gross,” Kara whispers.

Clark _beams._

…

…

Clark stops avoiding his cousin and Kara starts thriving. She comes home _excited_ about her day, chattering on and on about some new thing that she learned in History, or a book they’re reading in English, or some new classmate who _might_ be her friend now, while Lois tries to work and Clark makes them dinner. Clark starts teaching her how to cook and the two of them make it a regular thing that is going to fatten Lois up _real quick_ if she’s not careful. The apartment is never devoid of cookies and it is far more dangerous than living with two aliens ever seems to be.

Except, Clark goes around throwing himself into danger on the regular—not that Lois is one to talk—and she watches the way that Kara’s eyebrows crinkle together and the way that her hands ball up into fists and the way that her shoulders go all determined.

“High school graduation, bet you twenty bucks,” Lois says, crawling into bed with Clark.

“What,” he squawks. “No way. After college, like me.”

“You’re gonna owe me money, Smallville.” She hopes for possibly the first time in all her life that she loses. 

Clack hovers his body over her, and Lois reaches up and tugs him down and shuts up real quick. She’ll be right. She’s not worried about that part, it’s all of what comes after that she refuses to dwell on for now. 

…

…

Lois has a gun stuck in her face. It’s not the first time and if she doesn’t get her brains shot all over this pavement in the next few minutes, it probably won’t be her last but it’s _scaring her_ how much she’s not sure. She knows that she jumps into things without thinking first. She knows that Perry and Clark and Lucy and Martha—sometimes—all yell at her for a reason. She knows.

She just… keeps doing it anyway.

The vein on the man’s neck is bulging something fierce and reminding Lois way too much of her dad for comfort and her stomach revolts like she’s on a roller coaster before she squeezes her eyes shut. Clark is gonna be so mad that she left him alone to raise Kara.

 _Fuck. Kara._ Lois sucks in a breath and squares her shoulders and opens her mouth and tries to sweet talk her way outta dying. She’s not about to leave a sixteen-year-old girl—one who _finally_ walks around on this Earth like she might be starting to belong here, a little—alone because Lois went off and did something _stupid._ She’s not going to be another person in Kara’s life who dies. She can’t.

The gun gets a lot closer and Lois’s mouth goes dry. _Fuck._ The man’s finger squeezes the trigger and Lois starts to close her eyes, but then there is a flash of movement and she’s so, so relieved that Clark is here she’s almost giddy to get hollered at.

Except it’s not Clark.

The man is on the floor, screaming as Kara presses him down and then punches him till he’s silent. The gun is still in her hand, broken in half and she looks up at Lois and shakes. Her eyes are wild and panicked and she looks _so young_ and Lois fucking _loses it._

“WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?” she screams, running over and smacking the gun outta Kara’s hand and yanking her into Lois’s arms. She pushes her back out again and pokes at her, looking for injuries. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? HE COULD HAVE SHOT YOU!”

“NO HE COULDN’T!” Kara screams back, which shocks Lois silent. Kara hardly ever yells. “HE COULD HAVE SHOT _YOU,_ ” she yells, then collapses into Lois’s arms—a bone-crushing hug that gives her some bruises she never tells Kara about, after—and sobs, clinging to Lois tight. “Don’t _do_ that,” she begs through her tears.

Clark finds them still like that a few minutes later, and he’s silent as he steps forward, wraps his arms around them both and floats up into the sky. He flies slow. When they lower down and file into the apartment, Kara wrenches herself away from them both and slams her bedroom door closed.

Clark, as Lois predicted, hollers at her for a solid forty-three minutes. Except he is intensely aware of Kara in the other room and it’s not so much yelling as it is panicked and stressed whispers. He folds himself into her once he’s done and Lois knocks her head against his solidly warm chest. “It was _not_ the plan,” she mutters.

He stares at her incredulously.

“But I also was not a fan of coming that close to death, don’t worry Smallville, I’ll be more careful next time.”

“No you won’t,” he says, miserable.

“I will, Clark,” she promises. He looks down at her in surprise, holds her gaze for a moment, then nods.

It takes a lot longer to talk to Kara. For one, she won’t open her door when Lois knocks, and she won’t look at her the next morning either. She shuffles into the kitchen at the crack of dawn, puffy-eyed and silent and is clearly trying to avoid both of them but Lois is an old hat at this bullshit and she’s been awake since four.

“Hey kiddo,” she whispers, nursing her cup of coffee. Kara starts, but tries to walk in like she hasn’t. “We need to talk,” Lois tells her. She watches Kara’s shoulders go up near her ears and back down before she lets out a frustrated little huff and turns around to meet Lois’s eye. She looks down. Lois straightens up a bit more, as always, annoyed by Kara’s recent growth spurt that has her suddenly a few inches taller than Lois. Kara smiles despite herself and for once Lois doesn’t pout back.

“You almost got shot,” Kara accuses.

“Yeah, it wasn’t my best day,” Lois says, too sarcastic. Kara’s eyes go hard and angry and Lois snaps her mouth shut. She’s not taking this seriously enough in Kara’s eyes. It’s only, the sarcasm helps Lois feel like she isn’t constantly terrified of the things going on around her. She can’t really help it. “It was a shitty day,” she amends. Kara’s still mad.

“You almost _died._ ”

“I know,” Lois says, soft and serious. “Believe me kiddo, I know.”

“I—” Kara lets out a watery breath and Lois can’t stand it anymore. She rises from her seat and walks over and tugs Kara into her arms, still annoyed that she has to reach up, a bit.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m — you are a kid and you are not allowed to do that ever again but I am _so glad_ you came and saved me this time.”

“What—” Kara pulls her head back and is gearing up to protest but Lois smacks a hand over her mouth.

“No fucking way. I already have a panic attack sometimes about Smallville flinging himself around. I don’t need to worry about my kid, too.”

She doesn’t even realize what she’s gone and said until she’s slipped out of Kara’s arms, still prattling on about danger and homework and some other nonsense she has already lost track of, moving to retrieve her mug and fill it back up when she turns and sees the way that Kara has gone absolutely stiff beside her. Clark walks into the kitchen and stalls.

“Everything okay?”

“Your  _what?”_ Kara gasps.

“Um…” Lois frowns, thinking back on her ramblings and then her eyes go wide. “Oh, um, I only meant… well… Jesus fuck. Yeah, okay. We already established… family… whatever. Just… you know what I meant.”

Kara’s still just staring. Lois is panicking now. This feels too much like when Clark told her that he loved her, and she didn’t know how to handle her feelings, so she punched him and ran away. She can’t punch a sixteen-year-old. Even she has limits.

“What’s…” Clark runs a hand through his disheveled hair.

“Nothing,” Kara says, after a beat. “Let’s make pancakes.”

Clark shoots Lois a wary look, but she only nods at him and sinks down into the couch. Clark slides over next to Kara, the two of them falling into a familiar rhythm as they get to work whipping up some batter. Lois knows without looking that he’s shooting glances over at her. She sits there on the couch and grips her mug and does her level best to try and slow her heart rate down to something normal, rather than the jack-rabbit hammering that’s beating out of her right now. It’s not till they’re all sat around the table, shoveling banana pancakes into their mouths as Clark starts telling them a funny story about something he and Jimmy got up to with Perry, when Kara slides her hand over and rests it on top of Lois’s, that she finally relaxes.

Fuck, she thought Lucy was hard.

…

…

Clark owes her twenty dollars.

It’s her first thought, when Kara comes flying back home after talking with Martha, beaming and going on a mile a minute and holding out a costume that looks a bit like Clark’s. Her second thought, once she gets around to it, is that she sort of wants to wring Martha Kent’s neck, a little. It’s a dangerous thought to have. Clark and Kara both worship the woman. Kara goes to her with most things, not that she doesn’t go to Lois but—

It stings, sometimes. Lois is afraid of her. Wants her approval in a way that hurts her entire body and makes her feel ten years old and screaming out for her mother as her dad dragged her away from the hospital room and kept saying useless words like _I’m sorry,_ and, _take care of Lucy,_ and _nothing we can do._ Martha Kent is a formidable matriarch and she rules this family and she’s not soft but she is kind and Lois loves her and hates her all in one breath.

Clark is watching Kara excitedly, going on and on about training and moves and starts sweeping the cape around to show off and Kara’s getting more excited by the minute and Lois feels like screaming. She pictures Kara at thirteen, sputtering and almost drowning. At sixteen, shaking and holding a broken gun in her hands and she sinks down into the couch, silent.

It’s a Kent family dinner night. Lois slides into Clark’s arms numbly and he’s so in-tuned with her it only takes half a beat for him to figure out enough to start rubbing at her back while Kara flies beside them and does flips—showing off. Lois sits at the kitchen table and watches Martha’s mouth twitch fondly at the pair of them and notices, maybe, the hint of concern in her eyes as Kara gets more and more excited and Lois can’t stand it anymore and so once they’ve all moved into the living room, she just explodes.

Lois has rules.  
  
Kara’s mouth tucks into a frown, but Clark and Jonathan both move to flank Lois, agreeing with everything she says while Martha does the daily crossword over on the couch.  
  
“College is important,” Lois says. “You’re so smart, and this is not going to get in the way of your education. I had to basically tie Lucy into her desk, at one point. I’ll figure out a way to do it with you too, don’t think I won’t.”  
  
“Lois, I don’t—”  
  
“Only on the weekends,” she declares. “Weekdays if there is a brief emergency, then go fast and call Clark to finish the job.”  
  
“Lois—”  
  
“I mean it!” she hollers, surprising herself. Clark and Jonathan nod vigorously while Lois huffs out a breath and calms down. She walks over and slings her arms around Kara’s neck, hugging tight and whispering low in her ear. “I can’t lose you, kiddo. You’re allowed to have a normal life. It’s important. Please.” Kara’s arms snake back around her automatically, and she’s nodding the longer Lois whispers, not as annoyed, now. Lois watches Clark pointedly look away and start talking to Jonathan out of the corner of her eye—giving them some semblance of privacy.  
  
Kara turns, arms still tight around Lois’s middle and meets Martha’s eye. “What do you think?” she asks.  
  
Lois does her level best to hide any hint of disappointment at that, but she can see that Martha catches it. Kara doesn’t, thank god. She’s too focused on Martha. On Clark.  
  
“I think Lois is right,” Martha says, pushing her puzzle away and standing up. Slow, refined. Calm. Lois’s shoulders droop in relief, and this time, Kara notices. She grips her a little tighter and Lois doesn’t protest even though she should—she grunts after a second involuntarily and Kara goes sheepish and releases her. “Clark didn’t become Superman full time till he was twenty-four,” Martha says. “Even if you do as Lois asks, you’ll still have him beat by three years.”  
  
“Ma,” he protests, weakly. Lois sticks her tongue out at him, because if she doesn’t, she’ll do something stupidly embarrassing like cry.  
  
Kara’s laughing, smiling and eager to please now. “Okay, fine. Part-time only. Homework comes first,” she agrees. Lois knocks her head onto Kara’s shoulder in relief, then presses their foreheads together and kisses her cheek. Kara goes over towards Clark and Jonathan, the three of them unable to contain their excitement as they talk about boring things like velocity and landings. Lois turns and catches Martha’s eye, mouths, _thank you_ , and Martha only sips at her tea, shrugging through her smile. Lois hates her a little less.

She’s not even sure if she ever hated her to begin with.

…

…

Lois is in the middle of typing up an article on the—still, ongoing, fucking _always—_ police corruption in Gotham, trying to chug the largest mug of coffee that she owns, and choking on a Twizzler when Jimmy hollers and turns up the volume on the Planet’s television.

Turns out, Kara and Clark weren’t the last survivors of Krypton. Turns out, Kara’s aunt—the goddamn equivalent to an environmental terrorist, as far as Lois can tell—made it out with a pack of prisoners. Turns out, she is hellbent on destroying this planet for reasons that don’t make any goddamn sense no matter what way you look at it.  
  
Kara loves her something fierce, though. A fact that brings up a bubble of jealousy that Lois knows that she has no right to flop its way around her stomach.

Lois watches them fight on the news, calls up Clark and screams at him to get his ass over here and get her right fucking now, choking on the Twizzler till Jimmy jumps over and yanks it out of her throat. Clark is there half a breath later, and Lois launches herself into his arms and starts screaming about _that fucking aunt,_ and _punch the shit out of her steel-covered head,_ and the next thing she knows, Lois is dropped off onto the Kent’s porch only minutes later, shocked silent. She stands there for a single breath and watches the empty sky as Clark shoots up and leaves her, then comes tearing through the front door and continues screaming. This time, about how Clark left her behind, and how dare he, as she makes her way into the den and stalls at the sight of Martha, looking just as panicked as she feels, only for a moment.

“What the hell did we let her move across the country for?” she yells, pacing in front of the tv.  
  
“She’s twenty-four,” Martha says, far too calm. Lois would like to be calm right now. Right now, she is the direct opposite of calm. “We don’t let her do anything, anymore.”  
  
“I DO!” Lois tries to yell. Tries to be angry; she is trying really hard to grasp for anger right now, because otherwise, all she’s got left choked up inside her throat is white hot fear. She wants her mother. _God,_ she feels ten years old all over again. Martha moves over towards her calmly and gets Lois to sit on the couch. They’ve known each other for about fifteen years or so, now, but in all that time, they’ve never been physically affectionate. They are both used to being on the receiving end of the tactile Kryptonians that they both love, but neither of them tends to seek it out on their own. It’s not their thing. Now, Martha gets a good hold of Lois’s hand and grips it tight, and Lois stops shaking, a bit.

By the time that Jonathan comes in from the field and joins them, that group Kara sometimes works with has shown up along with Clark. Clark doesn’t like them. Lois doesn't like the sound of them all that much, either, but Kara won’t shut up about some girl named Alex who’s basically become her partner, and Lois isn’t as worried as Clark. Kara has always had a harder time making friends than Clark has, and talking about Alex makes her light up in a way that is rare and wonderful to see. Lois wouldn’t do anything to take that away for a minute. And she’s glad that Kara has someone over there who is watching her back. She sure as fuck needs it; she’s far too trusting.

Lois had slapped Clark as he tried to forbid her from working with them and told him to _chill the fuck out, Smallville. Kara is a big girl_. Of course, the second after he had harrumphed and walked outside to find Jonathan, Lois had rounded on Kara and lectured her about constantly questioning shady government agencies for a good forty-five minutes. She’s happy that Kara has a friend, she didn’t suddenly turn into a fucking _idiot._  
  
The woman that must be Alex—if Kara’s descriptions are enough to go by—stabs Astra through the chest with a kryptonite sword before she releases something that probably would have killed them all. Alex looks panicked by her actions and chucks the sword away as the woman falls to the ground. Kara is clinging to her in seconds, Clark and Alex, and that Martian hovering anxiously behind her. Lois breathes out wet and heavy, and Martha pulls her hand away, standing and pushing Jonathan down into her spot. He tugs Lois into his arms, looking at Martha in worry as she waves him off and walks into the kitchen. Lois clings to him and tries to breathe and not think about the unfair bundle of jealousy that Astra caused a few days earlier.

Kara shows up with Clark a few hours later, somber as the day he found her.  
  
Lois has been a bundle of nerves for hours, and she takes one look at her and says, “Thank god, I was so worried,” except for that it comes out as, “what the hell were you thinking?” she tugs Kara into a fiercely tight hug, reaching her arm out for Clark too, and it’s all just a bit too much, for a long breath.  

Martha makes a sharp noise that has all three of them turning and looking over at her. Lois wonders for the first time if maybe the formidable, calm presence is something of an act. But that can’t be true. As she passes by Clark, she drops a kiss to the top of his head. One to Kara’s cheek. Then the pushes them both towards Lois, holding her gaze soft and knowing as she pushes them all towards the couch, then hurries into the kitchen, Jonathan shuffling behind her. Maybe it is. 

“Don’t _do_ that,” Lois says. Kara hangs her head and Lois has never felt more miserable. “Want a Twizzler?” she asks, pulling a handful out of her purse. Clark frowns in disgust. “My purse is _clean_ Smallville,” she defends, though she looks down at it dubiously herself. When she looks back up, there’s a small twitch of a smile on Kara’s lips, and she takes it as a victory. Shoving a bit into her mouth and biting at it with an exaggerated roughness that Clark chuckles softly at.

“I’ll take one,” he says, mimicking her, and Lois loves him, so, so much.

Kara holds her hand out, bites without their exaggeration, but knocks her head down onto Lois’s shoulder. One hand is gripping at Clark’s. Lois turns and kisses her cheek. She doesn’t say that it’s gonna be okay, because it’s not fair and it’s not gonna be, for a bit, and Kara knows without her needing to say it. Instead, she sits there and holds her, offering up Twizzlers and chattering away about her day until Kara’s shoulders settle somewhere away from her ears and her eyes lose a little bit of their sadness. Clark catches her eye above Kara’s head sometime after Martha and Jonathan have come back in with tea and he just holds Lois’s gaze, for a beat.

“Yeah Smallville,” Lois rolls her eyes, playful. “You love me, we all know.”

Kara laughs. It’s watery and ragged and her eyes don’t light up the way that they always do, but she laughs and curls into Lois’s side, and it’s the sweetest sound that Lois has ever heard. Across the room, Martha catches Lois’s eye, and smiles.

 


End file.
